Papertake Weekly Sketch & A Graduation Card

The oldest son of one of my friends graduates this year. I was debating about what to make when I saw the Papertake Weekly sketch for this week:

Papertake Weekly Sketch #56

 As soon as I saw it, my card design popped into my head and the IRL card is pretty much as I first imagined it. (And much better than it looks in these awful pics.  Please forgive these horrid cellphone pics. My digital camera has gone MIA. Eek!)

The green and gold are his school colors.  The gold and black papers are Colorbok and have a delightful pearlescent sheen to them and the green is textured cardstock also from Colorbok. I used some Stickles in Platinum and Lime Zest for some sparkle here and there and to add some interest to the plain sheer black ribbon I chose. (How is it possible to have spool after spool after spool of ribbon and STILL not have just the "right" one?!)

I used my Spellbinders Nesties to create my stars, using the largest for the gold star and the next two sizes down together to make the black outline star. I paired those together behind my Pink Cat Studio Billy Graduate digi stamp which I colored with Promarkers and cut out. I didn't get too involved in shading. I keep smearing the printer ink when I use light colors (faces!); after some poking about online, I think I should try using the draft setting and see if that helps.  I used two layers of pop dots for lots of dimension.

On the inside I cut around the negative created from making the front gold star and made more stars out of my scraps. The larger white star is only glued down on 8 edges so there's space to tuck a check into it (under the little gold star.)

I stayed really simple with my papers. He's not a dp and embellishments kind of boy, so I used the sparkle and sheen and textures and dimension for interest. And, of course, the check that gets tucked into the larger white star on the left is the REAL focus anyway, right?  LOL 

The next projects coming up are all Girl birthdays of various ages and interests so I'll get lots more practice with mixing dps and embellies in the next couple weeks. =) Bring on the frills, fairies and flowers! =)

Happy Crafting!